.NET Short Unique Identifier

Question

I need a unique identifier in .NET (cannot use GUID as it is too long for this case).

Do people think that the algorithm used here is a good candidate or do you have

Answer 1

Based on some others, here is my solution which provides a different encoded guid which is URL (and Docker) safe and does not loose any information:

Convert.ToBase64String(Guid.NewGuid().ToByteArray()).Replace("=", "").Replace("+", "-").Replace("/", "_");

Example outputs are:

BcfttHA780qMdHSxSBoZFA
_4p5srPgOE2f25T_UnoGLw
H9xR_zdfm0y-zYjdR3NOig

Answer 2

If your app dont have a few MILLIION people, using that generate short unique string at the SAME MILLISECOND, you can think about using below function.

private static readonly Object obj = new Object();
private static readonly Random random = new Random();
private string CreateShortUniqueString()
{
    string strDate = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmssfff");
    string randomString ;
    lock (obj)
    {
        randomString = RandomString(3);
    }
    return strDate + randomString; // 16 charater
}
private string RandomString(int length)
{

    const string chars = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy";
    var random = new Random();
    return new string(Enumerable.Repeat(chars, length)
      .Select(s => s[random.Next(s.Length)]).ToArray());
}

change yyyy to yy if you just need to use your app in next 99 year.
Update 20160511: Correct Random function
- Add Lock object
- Move random variable out of RandomString function
Ref

Answer 3

here my solution, is not safe for concurrency, no more of 1000 GUID's per seconds and thread safe.

public static class Extensors
{

    private static object _lockGuidObject;

    public static string GetGuid()
    {

        if (_lockGuidObject == null)
            _lockGuidObject = new object();


        lock (_lockGuidObject)
        {

            Thread.Sleep(1);
            var epoch = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc);
            var epochLong = Convert.ToInt64((DateTime.UtcNow - epoch).TotalMilliseconds);

            return epochLong.DecimalToArbitrarySystem(36);

        }

    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Converts the given decimal number to the numeral system with the
    /// specified radix (in the range [2, 36]).
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="decimalNumber">The number to convert.</param>
    /// <param name="radix">The radix of the destination numeral system (in the range [2, 36]).</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static string DecimalToArbitrarySystem(this long decimalNumber, int radix)
    {
        const int BitsInLong = 64;
        const string Digits = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";

        if (radix < 2 || radix > Digits.Length)
            throw new ArgumentException("The radix must be >= 2 and <= " + Digits.Length.ToString());

        if (decimalNumber == 0)
            return "0";

        int index = BitsInLong - 1;
        long currentNumber = Math.Abs(decimalNumber);
        char[] charArray = new char[BitsInLong];

        while (currentNumber != 0)
        {
            int remainder = (int)(currentNumber % radix);
            charArray[index--] = Digits[remainder];
            currentNumber = currentNumber / radix;
        }

        string result = new String(charArray, index + 1, BitsInLong - index - 1);
        if (decimalNumber < 0)
        {
            result = "-" + result;
        }

        return result;
    }

code not optimized, just sample!.

Answer 4

to not lose characters (+ / -) and if you want to use your guid in an url, it must be transformed into base32

for 10 000 000 no duplicate key

    public static List<string> guids = new List<string>();
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++)
        {
            var guid = Guid.NewGuid();
            string encoded = BytesToBase32(guid.ToByteArray());
            guids.Add(encoded);
            Console.Write(".");
        }
        var result = guids.GroupBy(x => x)
                    .Where(group => group.Count() > 1)
                    .Select(group => group.Key);

        foreach (var res in result)
            Console.WriteLine($"Duplicate {res}");

        Console.WriteLine($"*********** end **************");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    public static string BytesToBase32(byte[] bytes)
    {
        const string alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
        string output = "";
        for (int bitIndex = 0; bitIndex < bytes.Length * 8; bitIndex += 5)
        {
            int dualbyte = bytes[bitIndex / 8] << 8;
            if (bitIndex / 8 + 1 < bytes.Length)
                dualbyte |= bytes[bitIndex / 8 + 1];
            dualbyte = 0x1f & (dualbyte >> (16 - bitIndex % 8 - 5));
            output += alphabet[dualbyte];
        }

        return output;
    }

Answer 5

Guid.NewGuid().ToString().Split('-').First()

Answer 6

Here's my small method to generate a random and short unique id. Uses a cryptographic rng for secure random number generation. Add whatever characters you need to the chars string.

private string GenerateRandomId(int length)
{
    char[] stringChars = new char[length];
    byte[] randomBytes = new byte[length];
    using (RandomNumberGenerator rng = RandomNumberGenerator.Create())
    {
        rng.GetBytes(randomBytes);
    }

    string chars = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";           

    for (int i = 0; i < stringChars.Length; i++)
    {
        stringChars[i] = chars[randomBytes[i] % chars.Length];
    }

    return new string(stringChars);
}